Ongar, though it owns a mound and an entrenchment, made no deep impression on us, and we passed on quickly to Chelmsford, trim, neat, ancient, and modern, for the county town of Essex bulks fairly large in far-away history, and, as for the modern appearance of its environs, especially those through which we passed _en route_ for Colchester, it has been written: "The Colchester road, through the northern suburb of Springfield, is enlivened by an avenue of villas and gardens." Comment, as the newspapers used to say, would be superfluous. This Colchester road, through the northern suburb of Springfield, was the old Roman road of our first tour, through Boreham and Witham and so far as Marks Tey, at any rate; but we travelled it in more genial conditions this time, and could see all there was to be seen. The villages and towns--for Witham is quite a town, and an ancient one at that--did not seduce us into a halt, although those of more leisurely mind may make one for the sake of examining Witham Church, in the walls of which are many Roman bricks. But the country, which pleased Arthur Young by its fertility and by virtue of the intelligent pains with which it was treated by the Essex farmers, is, in its peaceful way, one of the most fascinating and characteristic to be found in all England. I shall not attempt to do justice to it at this point, partly because our journey was taken too early in the spring for a landscape, of which the trees are the chief glory to be seen at its best, but principally because, as I think has been explained before, some account of the scenic beauties of Essex can be given more suitably in an attempt, to be made later, to record some of the experiences acquired, during a more than commonly golden September, in the course of ten days spent in motoring about Essex from Colchester as a centre. Let no more be said here than that the Essex elms, or most of them, are not "shrouded," as is the custom of many southern counties--that is to say, their side branches are not lopped off periodically, to supply fuel and pea-stocks, a mere tuft being left at the top--and the result of leaving the trees in their natural state is to make the roads shady and delightful, although road surveyors might take a different view of them.